I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

9 Companion Plants to Grow with Your Potatoes

The year I decided to grow two tons of food, potatoes were my favorite crop. They are super easy to grow, it’s easy to grow a ton of them, and they taste great with pretty much any meal {it didn’t hurt that they drove the scale for produce grown that year upward with their sheer density, either}.

Companion planting with potatoes is another way to increase your yields and ward off potential diseases and pests that could strike your taters before they hit your plate.

In an effort to keep companion planting simple, here’s a list of plants that do well with potatoes. {Lists are awesome. That’s just a fact.}

Marigolds. These flowers pretty much get along with everything. Plus, they provide some defense for pests.

Cabbage. Anything in the cabbage family does well next to potatoes {and vice versa}.

Peas. Peas provide nitrogen to the soil {like beans}. Potatoes like nice fertile soil {though, truth be told, they will grow in just about anything}.

Eggplant. Eggplant is one of those crops you either like or you don’t. If you do, potatoes and eggplants do well together.

Basil. Basil helps repel potato beetles.

Horseradish. Not only does horseradish deter some pests, it also helps the taters grow better. It’s win-win.

Lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens. Potatoes take up quite a bit of real estate. Leafy vegetables can be planted in between potatoes and harvested before they are ready. They potato leaves provide some shade in the warmer months, and you can get the most out of your garden space.

Coriander and catnip are also rumored to help deter the potato beetle.

Also, while the above list make potatoes happy, make sure to avoid planting potatoes near: tomatoes, cucumbers, turnips, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, rutabagas, and raspberries. They can slow potato growth and/or make potatoes more susceptible to blight.

Do you use companion planting with your potatoes? What do you plant with them?

My potato order just arrived, and they will go in the ground in a week or so. I think I will use up that valuable real estate between them to plant some greens! Great tip. I also have about 74 tomato plants and 72 pepper, tomatillo, and eggplant plants that I am trying to figure out where to put. Oh, and then there’s the onions. 24 rose bushes. Peonies. All of this is SOME of the stuff I have to get planted in the next week (except the tomatoes, etc.). This is a marvelous obsession!

I have never really planted enough to need to know companion plants. But this year, I’m trying potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, zucchini and herbs. We usually only plant sweet potato vines for looks. The cats have always been the companion to the sweet potato vines. They love the cool soil and hiding in the vines.

Last year I cleared my potato bed to make way for other vegetables, especially for cabbages. However my cabbages were eaten by slugs, so I got nothing : ( This year, I see those same cabbages and potatoes fighting for space (I never replanted them either), so I am really glad that they should do OK with each other. I have had the potatoes sharing that bed for years with rhubarb and had no problems with either of them.

I’ve just built a hugelkultur bed for my potatoes and I’m sowing salad leaves in there with the potatoes- the combination has worked well for me before. I’ve never tried planting anything else as I find the potato plants get so tall they smother everything else. (I’m in the UK).
I’m also trying growing potatoes in hay this year as I have no soil in my new garden, just clay, so I’m trying to build it as I grow.